Pink Floyd's Nick Mason suggests Endless River was written for Wachowski score

‘It seemed like that might be a place where the music could wind up ... it didn’t work out and it was back to the drawing board,’ says the band’s drummer, who met with the sibling directors nearly two years ago

Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason has revealed that the music which eventually became The Endless River was almost used for the soundtrack to a movie by the Wachowski siblings.

As Pink Floyd have repeatedly acknowledged, The Endless River was a very long process. Much of the material was drawn from sessions more than 20 years ago, when the group were working on The Division Bell. After a long hiatus, the band’s remaining members finally went back to work on the music. And as recently as 2012, Mason claims, they were talking about turning it into a film score.

“A little less than two years ago, [producer] Phil [Manzanera] and I met to go meet with the Wachowski siblings,” Mason told Rolling Stone. “They are working on a new movie and it seemed like that might be a place where the music could wind up. We’ve always liked the idea of film music. Maybe fortuitously, it didn’t work out and it was back to the drawing board.”

It’s not clear which film the Wachowskis and Pink Floyd were deliberating over. The Matrix directors released Cloud Atlas in 2012 and were also reportedly working on movies about Robin Hood and the Iraq war. Still, their most likely collaboration was Jupiter Ascending, a $150m space opera starring Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis, centring on the destiny of an alien princess. Although it’s not due to be released until February 2015, the film has been in development since around 2011. In 2013, the Wachowskis announced that Jupiter Ascending will be scored by Michael Giacchino.

Elsewhere in Mason’s Rolling Stone interview, he accused U2 of “devaluing music” with their Songs of Innocence giveaway. “Music has been horribly devalued by being given away. It’s funny [U2] didn’t sense some of that,” he said. “Bono and co ... did it the wrong way around ... [whereas] we’re hoping people might actually buy this record.”